Mumbai Police have denied the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) permission to hold a protest at Shivaji Park on October 2 against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, even as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Opposition traded sharp accusations over the Election Commission’s handling of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The Shivaji Park police station issued the rejection letter on September 27, addressed to Ajinkya Shinde, described as the party’s national organisation head. The letter, signed by Senior Police Inspector Pramod Pawar, cited Public Interest Litigation No. 116/2009 and the Bombay High Court’s subsequent order dated June 4, 2013, which restricts the use of the Shivaji Park ground to sporting activities. It also referred to a Maharashtra government resolution dated July 20, 2016, and noted that the applicant had not submitted the mandatory BMC permission letter required under it. The letter further stated that the protest could disturb the peace of the area, a designated silence zone, and could cause noise pollution and traffic congestion that might affect access to nearby hospitals. It advised the organisers to apply for permission at an alternative location within the city.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke reacted on X, calling the denial an attempt to suppress citizens’ voices and saying the organisation would carry out a “Jail Bharo Andolan” if police tried to stop the protest. “We will protest on October 2,” he said.
The protest call followed an investigation published by The Indian Express on September 23, in which journalist Ritika Chopra reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected on record at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions taken without their knowledge. The objections covered changes to Form 6 used by new voters, restricted access to the electoral roll database, appeals filed in West Bengal against court-restored voters, and a software issue that left 97 eligible voters off Goa’s final roll during the SIR.
The Election Commission first responded on September 23 through unnamed sources and later through an official statement, saying all its decisions, including those on the SIR, had been unanimous. On September 26, after a full Commission meeting, it issued a fresh press note announcing nine decisions, including circulating agendas before meetings and issuing minutes afterward, requiring Commission approval for officers’ foreign trips, and setting up a committee with an independent expert from IIT or IIIT to review the ECINet portal. The note said 81 of the 97 voters left off Goa’s roll had since filed Form 6, and confirmed that the two Commissioners had written to the Cabinet Secretary over a work redistribution order that “was not actually implemented” after their intervention.
Chopra, in a thread on X responding to the September 26 note, matched each of the nine decisions to a specific objection recorded earlier by Sandhu and Joshi, including Joshi’s April 16 note on the absence of circulated agendas and minutes, Sandhu’s April 16 note that he had learnt of new IT modules “from the media only,” and Sandhu’s August 14 note that field officers lacked “proper and complete access” to the ERONet portal. She described the September 26 statement as “a U-turn, not in what it says, but in what it does,” and listed unanswered questions, including who authorised appeals filed against voters in West Bengal and whether Director General (IT) Seema Khanna and Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg would continue in their posts.
The political reaction sharpened on Sunday. The BJP fielded a string of chief ministers against Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and the INDIA bloc, accusing them of spreading “baseless allegations” to malign the Election Commission. BJP president Nitin Nabin said the Commission had made clear that every SIR decision was taken unanimously by the full Commission, and accused the Congress of building its allegations on “a manufactured lie”. West Bengal’s Suvendu Adhikari said the Congress supported SIR in Kerala, where it won, but opposed it in Bengal after losing there. “We have won 208 seats, while the two sides (TMC and its allies) have 80. Mamata Banerjee is unable to accept the people’s verdict,” he said. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath called the Opposition’s criticism of the Commission “extremely unfortunate,” while Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said, “No votes have been stolen; Rahul Gandhi’s mind has been stolen.” Several other BJP chief ministers, including those of Bihar, Assam, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat, issued similar statements accusing the Opposition of trying to deflect from its electoral defeats.
The CPI(M), however, rejected the Commission’s September 26 statement outright. In a Politburo statement, the party said the note “neither addresses nor denies” the substantial issues raised by the Indian Express investigation, including questions over voter enrolment, deletions, changes to Form 6 and centralised control of the electoral database. The party repeated its demand for CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, saying, “If he does not resign, he should be impeached for misconduct. The SIR process must also be halted immediately.” Congress leader Jairam Ramesh separately described the Commission’s note as “wishy-washy,” and INDIA bloc parties are scheduled to meet on September 30 to decide their next course of action.
